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Acharya to meet Chief Minister on hospitals' power charges

HI-TECH FACILITY: Minister for Medical Education and Animal Husbandry V.S. Acharya (second from right) at Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology in Bangalore on Tuesday. Lalitha Rao who has made a donation to the hospital in memory of her late husban d T.S. Ramachandra Rao is at left. Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

Staff Reporter

`Government hospitals being treated on par with private ones'

Bangalore: Minister for Medical Education and Animal Husbandry V.S. Acharya on Tuesday said he would request the Chief Minister to bring down electricity and water charges for government hospitals.

Speaking at the silver jubilee celebration of Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology here, Dr. Acharya said government hospitals were being treated on par with private hospitals and asked to pay these charges at commercial rates.

He said private hospitals should reduce rates to help patients avail themselves of good treatment.

The Minister said the institute now had a 70-bed medical intensive care unit built at a cost of Rs. 60 lakh for those requiring chemotherapy.

This was made possible by a benevolent gesture of Lalitha Rao in memory of her late husband and journalist T.S. Ramachandra Rao, who died of cancer.

State-of-the-art facility

A state-of-the-art radiotherapy dual high energy linear accelerator with advanced gadgets such as intensity modulated radiotherapy, 3D conformal radiotherapy and micro multi-leaf collimator would be installed with financial support from the Union and the State Governments.

Support group

According to P.P. Bapsy, Director, Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, the "G-PAP" Support, a patient support group, is the first of its kind for patients suffering from chronic myeloid leukaemia. The support group will help better patient compliance for therapy.